The picture of what’s going on with stolen Dutch artwork allegedly found in Ukraine just gets cloudier and cloudier.
On Dec. 7, the Westfries Museum in Hoorn, the Netherlands accused a Defense Ministry battalion that formerly was the OUN volunteer unit, top officials of the nationalist Svoboda Party and former Security Service chief Ukraine Valentyn Nalyvaychenko of blackmail. [...] The Dutch said all their accusations were based on the results of a private investigation by Dutch art detective Arthur Brand, who was hired by the museum to track down the works.
But after 20 days of investigation led by Ukrainian and Dutch law enforcement agencies, the museum changed its position and stopped commenting publicly.
Geerdink is no longer linking Tyahnybok and Nalyvaychenko to the case [...] now Brand doesn’t even talk to the press anymore [...] The SBU [Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrayiny PMB] has denied Brand’s latest claims, and the investigation continues.

"At least", Melkozerova observes, "the Dutch prevented their sale so far on the black
market, their stated goal for holding the attention-grabbing Dec. 7 news
release". I have very grave reservations about the ethicality of such a mud-slinging stunt in desperation, it remains to be seen if any sale has been prevented, the the mud-slingers were out to damage the reputation of Ukraine, quite clearly with no intention of issuing any kind of retraction. These "investigators" should take into account that this sort of thing potentially has wide repercussions well beyond their narrow parochial interests. The publication of these accusations in such a way is simply crude political blackmail and something museums should not be involved in. Scandalous behaviour.

UPDATE 26th December 2015
The tabloid newspaperTelegraaf reports that Oleh Tyhanybok has already been questioned by the Kiev police about the accusations that he was involved in the fencing of 24 stolen Dutch paintings. It reports that his phone had been tapped. It seems the Dutch authorities love phone-tapping, it is pretty endemic over there (here, here, here and here), and it seems they're happy to see such intrusive behaviour spread to east-central Europe too.

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About Me

British archaeologist living and working in Warsaw, Poland. Since the early 1990s (or even longer) a primary interest has been research on artefact hunting and collecting and the market in portable antiquities in the international context and their effect on the archaeological record.

Abbreviations used in this blog

"coiney" - a term I use for private collector of dug up ancient coins, particularly a member of the Moneta-L forum or the ACCG

"heap-of-artefacts-on-a-table-collecting" the term rather speaks for itself, an accumulation of loose artefacts with no attempt to link each item with documented origins. Most often used to refer to metal detectorists (ice-cream tubs-full) and ancient coin collectors (Roman coins sold in aggregated bulk lots)